Particle accelerators are used industrially to irradiate a solid target material. A system is needed to place the target material in front of the beam of accelerated particles, keep it there during irradiation, and remove the radionuclide product from the target material quickly and efficiently at the processing point located at distance from the particle accelerator. The target material is typically manually loaded into the particle accelerator system. The irradiated target material is then transported to a shielded transport container either manually or semi-automatically. The shielding box is transported manually to the target processing point and at the processing point targets are again handled manually or semi-automatically.
The overall process is time demanding and results in an operator contact with the activated targets. Additionally, there is a growing demand for radioisotopes and many existing facilities need to increase the number of radioisotopes being produced.